Translator: Julia van Montfort Reviewer: Els De Keyser
It's always nice; having a cup of coffee
They say it's not so healthy,
But I must say that the best conversations I've had
always took place while enjoying a cup of coffee.
Anyway.
5 years ago,
I was 19 years old.
That's not a very long time ago,
but from where I stand now,
it feels like another era.
I had just taken the first steps
to reinvent myself.
Because it wasn't okay.
I made myself unhappy
with my inability to just be relaxed
and sociable with other people.
Especially with people I didn't know,
while it appeared to be so easy for others.
I was fed up with my life of insecurity.
The simple thought that I was also the
only one completely responsible for that,
was mainly a source of despair.
But it was of course also an opportunity to change.
I started working on myself,
and along the way I learned a lot about myself
and how the world works.
But how did I start?
For me, the only way
was to switch off my mind
and start doing something instead of always dreaming.
Because dreaming... that's safe.
To start acting on your dreams
is scary;
you run the risk
that they fall to pieces.
But for me the thought
to discover in 50 years
I hadn't lived the life that I'd wanted to live,
was much more frightening.
So follow your dreams!
That always sounds so simple.
But sometimes you don't even have a dream,
or it seems so far away that it paralyzes you
to even attempt to do something.
In that situation I found myself, halfway down my path.
I was completely blocked.
I didn't want anything anymore, I couldn't see my path.
No, wait, there was something I wanted:
I wanted to win the lottery!
With the money,
I'd buy a house in the countryside in Italy,
and never come back.
I put my luck in the hands of the lottery.
Unfortunately they aren't very considerate handling that responsibility.
At my university I then got the chance
to join a new program:
The Innovation Class.
In that program you were given the opportunity
to find out what you wanted
and where your talents lay,
and to develop a project from there.
I joined that program
and already in the first couple of days
I grew confident
that I would find my path again.
We did an exercise which I found a bit odd;
You were blindfolded
and then you had to walk to someone
who was standing somewhere in front of you,
but you didn't know exactly where.
In total darkness it was kind of hard
to even put one step forward.
However, afterwards someone made a remark
which impressed me a lot.
I won't forget it quickly either:
You don't have to be able to see your goal
in order to reach it anyway.
The logical conclusion is also that
if you don't act at all, you won't reach it either way.
So that is what I started doing then.
"There's no glory staying at the kitchen table."
That's what my father always says.
And actually only when I started to emerge from that table,
I discovered how very right he had always been.
I just began talking to people
about things that interested me,
and those people enjoyed talking with me and to help me.
They, in turn, put me into contact with
other people and thus it developed.
One of the subjects I was researching at that time was happiness.
At one point I decided to stop believing
that one's ultimate happiness would come IF this... or IF that...
But I realized that life
is a sum of moments of happiness.
You just have to be aware of them.
During that research,
I made the discovery which took me by surprise,
that I, introvert I,
experienced a moment of happiness everytime when I had contact with others,
especially with those whom I didn't know.
That lay the foundations for 'Colleague for a Day'.
It's a continuation of the philosophy
"no glory staying at the kitchen table".
Not for me,
and not for others.
While it is essential to move forward.
I also saw that there were more and more independent entrepreneurs
and that they don't have the luxury of hopping over to the coffee machine
for a chat with a colleague
or to exchange some thoughts.
While also for them it is essential
to move forward in their jobs.
And that colleague is what I wanted to give to entrepreneurs,
through an online service,
that makes it very easy to find near you
other members who also look for that connection.
Whether your goal is
to brainstorm,
or to just find some company while working,
or just having a coffee,
or even a collaboration,
that doesn't matter to me.
Beforehand you can't know anyway which value you'll find.
But what I do know,
from personal experience,
is that to bring out the best in yourself,
you need other people...
and a cup of coffee.
Thank you.